Opinion
Board Certified Chaplain Bill Simpson comforts a patient under investigation for coronavirus at SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital in Shawnee, Okla., April 23, 2020. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
In this global COVID-19 pandemic, we are reeling from individual and collective grief. We are trying to figure out what life looks like on the other side, hoping for something “normal” but unsure of what that even means.
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Nobody wants our society, economy, government, schools, or our families to stay on lockdown. Everybody wants our lives to re-open. But in order to do that in a way that protects health and lives, three biblical principles are necessary: truth, unity, and solidarity.
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Dr. Oz, Dan Patrick, and a smattering of evangelical pastors utilize rhetoric that pits the long-term economic health of the United States against the short-term health of the actual, flesh-and-blood people living in the U.S. right now. Such rhetoric is dangerous to people’s immediate health, but it also puts in sharp relief a simmering debate among evangelicals: What does it mean to love one’s neighbor?
Job and His Friends. 1869. Ilya Repin.
The book of Job is remarkably relevant in this moment and speaks to our present condition.
In years past, I’ve invited my non-Muslim friends and community members to visit my mosque for interfaith Iftars. These were opportunities to discuss similarities in fasting across Muslim, Christian, and Jewish traditions, as well as chances to share food and friendship. Now, these interfaith events are impossible. But there are still ways to come together in friendship and solidarity for Muslims during COVID-19 Ramadan.
President Donald Trump arrives during the daily coronavirus task force briefing at the White House in Washington, April 18, 2020. REUTERS/Al Drago
It’s easy to think a wave of post-virus racial violence like this couldn’t occur today. We’re not coming out of a major world war. And the modern civil rights movement, which traces its roots to actions of resistance during Red Summer, has secured more equal rights and protections for racial minorities. But we are facing official unemployment levels of nearly 20 percent, levels not seen since the Great Depression. Our civic ties have been fraying over the last few decades. And President Trump’s victory in the 2016 campaign laid bare the reality that our greatest divisions are marked not by policy disagreements but by the deeper fault lines of partisan, racial, and religious identity. Even before the pandemic, white supremacy and racial resentment resurfaced as visible features of our culture, religions, and politics.
Portrait of Thomas Robert Malthus by John Linnell. 1834.
Love him or hate him, Malthus is one of those figures who doesn’t go away.
How do we feed kids who are missing nearly 34 million meals each day now that schools are shuttered because of the coronavirus?
Eugene V. Debs making a speech. 1921.
'He was of the working class and loyal to it in every drop of his hot blood to the very hour of his death.'
Trump’s daily press briefings resemble the kind of public idolatry that ancient Caesars engaged in.
St. Jerome by Caravaggio. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
For Christians, studying history is an act of love and hope.
A screenshot shows choir Sola rehearsing online using a Zoom platform in Riga, Latvia April 14, 2020. REUTERS/Janis Laizans
Churches across the country are learning that loving one another and our neighbors — while physically distancing ourselves from them — is possible.
Latin American theologian, missiologist, and educator Ruth Padilla DeBorst and Rev. Jim Wallis discuss the importance of social consciousness in the creation of government policy.
Pastor Tony Spell talks with journalists before attending Sunday service at the Life Tabernacle megachurch challenging state orders against assembling in large groups to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Baton Rouge, La., April 5, 2020. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Times of crisis tend to engender apocalyptic thinking. We’re seeing that today during the coronavirus pandemic. Conspiracy theories abound, and some people are talking about the end of the world. Could the current crisis be God’s judgment for sinfulness or our persistent abuse of the environment? Is an apocalyptic reckoning at hand?
3. Their Calling Was to Lay Hands on the Sick. Then Came the Coronavirus.
How the pandemic transformed the lives and ministry of eight Manhattan priests, and what their example can teach the rest of us.
4. Christian ethics and the dilemma of triage during a pandemic
In the current COVID-19 pandemic, medical staff are making triage decisions about who will be saved by artificial ventilation and who will be allowed to die.
Image via REUTERS/Leah Millis
The way presidents and governments use language reflects the society they want to construct — and for the United States, presidents have long attempted to build a narrative that hides he real impacts of war and makes the United States look the part of a noble hero. Crisis and pandemics don’t start wars, and they won’t end war, but the United States may use crisis to beat the drums of war.
Image via REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde
Nearly 20 years later, we must again push our government to expand global aid to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. As Christians, the moral imperative is clear. But in order to convince the powers at be, we must also argue that protecting the American economy and our national public health requires that we move from investing millions to investing billions — perhaps even trillions — in order to mount an adequate global response.
Photo by Lucas Soares on Unsplash
What faces we see, either in person or in our hearts, carries a sacred and saving significance. Those of us with the luxury of being able to shelter in place because we have adequate space, who can maintain physical distance because there’s no need to be crowded, and who can wash our hands because we never have to think about soap and hot water, can exchange post-Easter greetings in safety, probably on Zoom. We treasure those bonds with one another in a socially isolated time.
Gallagher calls for work together, especially in the wake of the devastation of the coronavirus.
Fr. Richard Rohr and Rev. Jim Wallis discuss the many examples of hope and grace to be found amid the despair of the deadly coronavirus pandemic.